While it's been years since Ken Harwood, PT, PhD, FAPTA, last worked as a physical therapist in private practice, one aspect of the job he remembers remains the same at most clinics today. The electronic health record system he depended on, he recalls, was really only there for two purposes.

"I used it for myself to track what my patients were doing, and it was for billing," Harwood says. It wasn't a technology that could easily communicate with other physical therapy practices, and it certainly wasn't connected to the wider world of health care professions.